Time Is My Enemy Again

Sorry folks, a very late night (I returned home after 1am), physical therapy this morning, a heavy workload, and some nonsensical team building event today have accounted for all of my time.ITP Flickr Pic
Lookie, a photo!
This was the beginning of last night’s Flaming Lips’ concert at The Tabernacle.

I don’t know where it’s going to end. What example are you setting? “Hey kids, racing your bike is fun, and when you get old enough, you can be a doper like me and raise your game to a whole new level… right up until your heart bursts (Tom Simpson in the ’60’s and the Dutch riders in the early 80’s) Do I think the UCI has looked the other way in regards to the highest profile riders getting caught? I certainly hope not, and it certainly doesn’t seem so- Floyd got caught after winning the TdF, they are chasing Contador to the CAS and may yet have him banned. So if they are looking the other way, to what or who’s gain? I have said for many years and the words ring more true now as ever, you don’t have to be clean, you just have to beat the tests.

How do we clean it up? I thought the biological passport was a decent start, but if you know the “vampires” are coming, you can certainly adjust your “behavior” in order to skew the values. So far, I haven’t heard of any testing of hair samples, but that would be another avenue…

Cyclists are the most tested athletes on the planet. Pro athletes in this country would go running to their union if they had to report their whereabouts to the league every day in advance for 3 month intervals like pro cyclists do. This is so the drug testers can find you for “out of competition” testing.

I don’t know the answer.. I just know something is wrong with the sport I love.

I’m with you Steve, I would love to see the racers all race clean. Clean clean, and not just clean enough to beat a test. The times would be slower but who cares, it would still be good racing.
Let’s go back to the roots where before a climb the guys would drink a beer for protein and smoke a cigarette to “open up their lungs” back to a time when there were real men, not the whiny bunch we have today (that goes for all sports).

I also wonder what would happen if “anything goes”. Would people push enough crap into their systems that would take decades off their lives? What would these animals look like? That would be pretty crazy.

I guess my question about “anything goes” is why? Back when I was racing, I had a teammate who said we are able to do what a miniscule percentage of the population can do. Pro riders are a miniscule percentage of that group… so what you are then competing against is “my doping doctor is better than yours”. Not a competition I wish to see, or be a party to.